Common Sense Essay, Research Paper

PERHAPS the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet

sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a

thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a

formidable outcry in defence of custom. But tumult soon subsides. Time makes

more converts than reason.

As a long and violent abuse of power is generally the means of calling the right

of it in question, (and in matters too which might never have been thought of, had

not the sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry,) and as the king of England hath

undertaken in his own right, to support the parliament in what he calls theirs, and as

the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they

have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to

reject the usurpations of either.

In the following sheets, the author hath studiously avoided every thing which

is personal among ourselves. Compliments as well as censure to individuals make

no part thereof. The wise and the worthy need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and

those whose sentiments are injudicious or unfriendly, will cease of themselves,

unless too much pains is bestowed upon their conversion.

The cause of America is, in a great measure, the cause of all mankind. Many

circumstances have, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through

which the principles of all lovers of mankind are affected, and in the event of

which, their affections are interested. The laying a country desolate with fire and

sword, declaring war against the natural rights of all mankind, and extirpating the

defenders thereof from the face of the earth, is the concern of every man to whom

nature hath given the power of feeling; of which class, regardless of party censure,

is THE AUTHOR Philadelphia, Feb. 14, 1776.

OF THE ORIGIN AND DESIGN OF GOVERNMENT IN GENERAL. WITH

CONCISE REMARKS ON THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION

SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little

or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have

different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our

wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections,

the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the

other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but

a necessary evil in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are

exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country

without government, our calamities is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the

means by which we suffer! Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence;

the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the

impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no

other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a

part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is

induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of

two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of

government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most

likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to

all others.

In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and end of government, let

us suppose a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth,

unconnected with the rest, they will then represent the first peopling of any country,

or of the world. In this state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought. A

thousand motives will excite them thereto, the strength of one man is so unequal to

his wants, and his mind so unfitted for perpetual solitude, that he is soon obliged to

seek assistance and relief of another, who in his turn requires the same. Four or five

united would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness, but

one man might labor out the common period of life without accomplishing any

thing; when he had felled his timber he could not remove it, nor erect it after it was

removed; hunger in the mean time would urge him from his work, and every

different want call him a different way. Disease, nay even misfortune would be

death, for though neither might be mortal, yet either would disable him from living,

and reduce him to a state in which he might rather be said to perish than to die.

Thus necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form our newly arrived

emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessings of which, would supersede, and

render the obligations of law and government unnecessary while they remained

perfectly just to each other; but as nothing but heaven is impregnable to vice, it will

unavoidably happen, that in proportion as they surmount the first difficulties of

emigration, which bound them together in a common cause, they will begin to relax

in their duty and attachment to each other; and this remissness, will point out the

necessity, of establishing some form of government to supply the defect of moral

virtue.

Some convenient tree will afford them a State-House, under the branches of

which, the whole colony may assemble to deliberate on public matters. It is more

than probable that their first laws will have the title only of Regulations, and be

enforced by no other penalty than public disesteem. In this first parliament every

man, by natural right will have a seat.

But as the colony increases, the public concerns will increase likewise, and the

distance at which the members may be separated, will render it too inconvenient for

all of them to meet on every occasion as at first, when their number was small,

their habitations near, and the public concerns few and trifling. This will point out

the convenience of their consenting to leave the legislative part to be managed by a

select number chosen from the whole body, who are supposed to have the same

concerns at stake which those have who appointed them, and who will act in the

same manner as the whole body would act were they present. If the colony

continue increasing, it will become necessary to augment the number of the

representatives, and that the interest of every part of the colony may be attended

to, it will be found best to divide the whole into convenient parts, each part sending

its proper number; and that the elected might never form to themselves an interest

separate from the electors, prudence will point out the propriety of having elections

often; because as the elected might by that means return and mix again with the

general body of the electors in a few months, their fidelity to the public will be

secured by the prudent reflection of not making a rod for themselves. And as this

frequent interchange will establish a common interest with every part of the

community, they will mutually and naturally support each other, and on this (not on

the unmeaning name of king) depends the strength of government, and the

happiness of the governed.

Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered

necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design

and end of government, viz., freedom and security. And however our eyes may be

dazzled with snow, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp

our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and of

reason will say, it is right.

I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which

no art can overturn, viz., that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be

disordered, and the easier repaired when disordered; and with this maxim in view, I

offer a few remarks on the so much boasted constitution of England. That it was

noble for the dark and slavish times in which it was erected is granted. When the

world was overrun with tyranny the least therefrom was a glorious rescue. But that

it is imperfect, subject to convulsions, and incapable of producing what it seems to

promise, is easily demonstrated.

Absolute governments (though the disgrace of human nature) have this

advantage with them, that they are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head

from which their suffering springs, know likewise the remedy, and are not

bewildered by a variety of causes and cures. But the constitution of England is so

exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years together without being

able to discover in which part the fault lies, some will say in one and some in

another, and every political physician will advise a different medicine.

I know it is difficult to get over local or long standing prejudices, yet if we will

suffer ourselves to examine the component parts of the English constitution, we

shall find them to be the base remains of two ancient tyrannies, compounded with

some new republican materials.

First.- The remains of monarchical tyranny in the person of the king.

Secondly.- The remains of aristocratical tyranny in the persons of the peers.

Thirdly.- The new republican materials, in the persons of the commons, on whose

virtue depends the freedom of England.

The two first, by being hereditary, are independent of the people; wherefore

in a constitutional sense they contribute nothing towards the freedom of the state.

To say that the constitution of England is a union of three powers reciprocally

checking each other, is farcical, either the words have no meaning, or they are flat

contradictions.

To say that the commons is a check upon the king, presupposes two things.

First.- That the king is not to be trusted without being looked after, or in other

words, that a thirst for absolute power is the natural disease of monarchy.

Secondly.- That the commons, by being appointed for that purpose, are either wiser

or more worthy of confidence than the crown.

But as the same constitution which gives the commons a power to check the

king by withholding the supplies, gives afterwards the king a power to check the

commons, by empowering him to reject their other bills; it again supposes that the

king is wiser than those whom it has already supposed to be wiser than him. A

mere absurdity!

There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy; it

first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in

cases where the highest judgment is required. The state of a king shuts him from

the world, yet the business of a king requires him to know it thoroughly; wherefore

the different parts, unnaturally opposing and destroying each other, prove the whole

character to be absurd and useless.

Some writers have explained the English constitution thus; the king, say they,

is one, the people another; the peers are an house in behalf of the king; the

commons in behalf of the people; but this hath all the distinctions of an house

divided against itself; and though the expressions be pleasantly arranged, yet when

examined they appear idle and ambiguous; and it will always happen, that the nicest

construction that words are capable of, when applied to the description of

something which either cannot exist, or is too incomprehensible to be within the

compass of description, will be words of sound only, and though they may amuse

the ear, they cannot inform the mind, for this explanation includes a previous

question, viz. How came the king by a power which the people are afraid to trust,

and always obliged to check? Such a power could not be the gift of a wise people,

neither can any power, which needs checking, be from God; yet the provision,

which the constitution makes, supposes such a power to exist.

But the provision is unequal to the task; the means either cannot or will not

accomplish the end, and the whole affair is a felo de se; for as the greater weight

will always carry up the less, and as all the wheels of a machine are put in motion

by one, it only remains to know which power in the constitution has the most

weight, for that will govern; and though the others, or a part of them, may clog, or,

as the phrase is, check the rapidity of its motion, yet so long as they cannot stop it,

their endeavors will be ineffectual; the first moving power will at last have its way,

and what it wants in speed is supplied by time.

That the crown is this overbearing part in the English constitution needs not

be mentioned, and that it derives its whole consequence merely from being the

giver of places pensions is self evident, wherefore, though we have and wise

enough to shut and lock a door against absolute monarchy, we at the same time

have been foolish enough to put the crown in possession of the key.

The prejudice of Englishmen, in favor of their own government by king,

lords, and commons, arises as much or more from national pride than reason.

Individuals are undoubtedly safer in England than in some other countries, but the

will of the king is as much the law of the land in Britain as in France, with this

difference, that instead of proceeding directly from his mouth, it is handed to the

people under the most formidable shape of an act of parliament. For the fate of

Charles the First, hath only made kings more subtle not- more just.

Wherefore, laying aside all national pride and prejudice in favor of modes and

forms, the plain truth is, that it is wholly owing to the constitution of the people,

and not to the constitution of the government that the crown is not as oppressive in

England as in Turkey.

An inquiry into the constitutional errors in the English form of government is

at this time highly necessary; for as we are never in a proper condition of doing

justice to others, while we continue under the influence of some leading partiality,

so neither are we capable of doing it to ourselves while we remain fettered by any

obstinate prejudice. And as a man, who is attached to a prostitute, is unfitted to

choose or judge of a wife, so any prepossession in favor of a rotten constitution of

government will disable us from discerning a good one.

OF MONARCHY AND HEREDITARY SUCCESSION

MANKIND being originally equals in the order of creation, the equality could

only be destroyed by some subsequent circumstance; the distinctions of rich, and

poor, may in a great measure be accounted for, and that without having recourse to

the harsh, ill-sounding names of oppression and avarice. Oppression is often the

consequence, but seldom or never the means of riches; and though avarice will

preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous

to be wealthy. But there is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural

or religious reason can be assigned, and that is, the distinction of men into KINGS

and SUBJECTS. Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the

distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above

the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth enquiring into, and

whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.

In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chronology, there

were no kings; the consequence of which was there were no wars; it is the pride of

kings which throw mankind into confusion. Holland without a king hath enjoyed

more peace for this last century than any of the monarchial governments in Europe.

Antiquity favors the same remark; for the quiet and rural lives of the first patriarchs

hath a happy something in them, which vanishes away when we come to the

history of Jewish royalty.

Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens,

from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous

invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The Heathens

paid divine honors to their deceased kings, and the Christian world hath improved

on the plan by doing the same to their living ones. How impious is the title of sacred

majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!

As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the

equal rights of nature, so neither can it be defended on the authority of scripture;

for the will of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon and the prophet Samuel,

expressly disapproves of government by kings. All anti-monarchial parts of scripture

have been very smoothly glossed over in monarchial governments, but they

undoubtedly merit the attention of countries which have their governments yet to

form. Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s is the scriptural doctrine of

courts, yet it is no support of monarchial government, for the Jews at that time

were without a king, and in a state of vassalage to the Romans.

Near three thousand years passed away from the Mosaic account of the

creation, till the Jews under a national delusion requested a king. Till then their form

of government (except in extraordinary cases, where the Almighty interposed) was

a kind of republic administered by a judge and the elders of the tribes. Kings they

had none, and it was held sinful to acknowledge any being under that title but the

Lords of Hosts. And when a man seriously reflects on the idolatrous homage which

is paid to the persons of kings he need not wonder, that the Almighty, ever jealous

of his honor, should disapprove of a form of government which so impiously

invades the prerogative of heaven.

Monarchy is ranked in scripture as one of the sins of the Jews, for which a

curse in reserve is denounced against them. The history of that transaction is worth

attending to.

The children of Israel being oppressed by the Midianites, Gideon marched

against them with a small army, and victory, through the divine interposition,

decided in his favor. The Jews elate with success, and attributing it to the

generalship of Gideon, proposed making him a king, saying, Rule thou over us,

thou and thy son and thy son’s son. Here was temptation in its fullest extent; not a

kingdom only, but an hereditary one, but Gideon in the piety of his soul replied, I

will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you, THE LORD SHALL

RULE OVER YOU. Words need not be more explicit; Gideon doth not decline the

honor but denieth their right to give it; neither doth be compliment them with

invented declarations of his thanks, but in the positive stile of a prophet charges

them with disaffection to their proper sovereign, the King of Heaven.

About one hundred and thirty years after this, they fell again into the same

error. The hankering which the Jews had for the idolatrous customs of the

Heathens, is something exceedingly unaccountable; but so it was, that laying hold of

the misconduct of Samuel’s two sons, who were entrusted with some secular

concerns, they came in an abrupt and clamorous manner to Samuel, saying, Behold

thou art old and thy sons walk not in thy ways, now make us a king to judge us like

all the other nations. And here we cannot but observe that their motives were bad,

viz., that they might be like unto other nations, i.e., the Heathen, whereas their true

glory laid in being as much unlike them as possible. But the thing displeased Samuel

when they said, give us a king to judge us; and Samuel prayed unto the Lord, and

the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say

unto thee, for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, THEN I

SHOULD NOT REIGN OVER THEM.

According to all the works which have done since the day; wherewith they

brought them up out of Egypt, even unto this day; wherewith they have forsaken

me and served other Gods; so do they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto

their voice, howbeit, protest solemnly unto them and show them the manner of the

king that shall reign over them, i.e., not of any particular king, but the general

manner of the kings of the earth, whom Israel was so eagerly copying after. And

notwithstanding the great distance of time and difference of manners, the character

is still in fashion. And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people, that

asked of him a king. And he said, This shall be the manner of the king that shall

reign over you; he will take your sons and appoint them for himself for his chariots,

and to be his horsemen, and some shall run before his chariots (this description

agrees with the present mode of impressing men) and he will appoint him captains

over thousands and captains over fifties, and will set them to ear his ground and to

read his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his

chariots; and he will take your daughters to be confectionaries and to be cooks and

to be bakers (this describes the expense and luxury as well as the oppression of

kings) and he will take your fields and your olive yards, even the best of them, and

give them to his servants; and he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your

vineyards, and give them to his officers and to his servants (by which we see that

bribery, corruption, and favoritism are the standing vices of kings) and he will take

the tenth of your men servants, and your maid servants, and your goodliest young

men and your asses, and put them to his work; and he will take the tenth of your

sheep, and ye shall be his servants, and ye shall cry out in that day because of your

king which ye shall have chosen, AND THE LORD WILL NOT HEAR YOU IN

THAT DAY. This accounts for the continuation of monarchy; neither do the

characters of the few good kings which have lived since, either sanctify the title, or

blot out the sinfulness of the origin; the high encomium given of David takes no

notice of him officially as a king, but only as a man after God’s own heart.

Nevertheless the People refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay,

but we will have a king over us, that we may be like all the nations, and that our

king may judge us, and go out before us and fight our battles. Samuel continued to

reason with them, but to no purpose; he set before them their ingratitude, but all

would not avail; and seeing them fully bent on their folly, he cried out, I will call

unto the Lord, and he shall sent thunder and rain (which then was a punishment,

being the time of wheat harvest) that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness

is great which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, IN ASKING YOU A KING.

So Samuel called unto the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and

all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel And all the people said unto

Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God that we die not, for WE

HAVE ADDED UNTO OUR SINS THIS EVIL, TO ASK A KING. These

portions of scripture are direct and positive. They admit of no equivocal

construction. That the Almighty hath here entered his protest against monarchial

government is true, or the scripture is false. And a man hath good reason to believe

that there is as much of kingcraft, as priestcraft in withholding the scripture from

the public in Popish countries. For monarchy in every instance is the Popery of

government.

To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as

the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a

matter of right, is an insult and an imposition on posterity. For all men being

originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in

perpetual preference to all others for ever, and though himself might deserve some

decent degree of honors of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too

unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of

hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so

frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.

Secondly, as no man at first could possess any other public honors than were

bestowed upon him, so the givers of those honors could have no power to give

away the right of posterity, and though they might say, “We choose you for our

head,” they could not, without manifest injustice to their children, say, “that your

children and your children’s children shall reign over ours for ever.” Because such

an unwise, unjust, unnatural compact might (perhaps) in the next succession put

them under the government of a rogue or a fool. Most wise men, in their private

sentiments, have ever treated hereditary right with contempt; yet it is one of those

evils, which when once established is not easily removed; many submit from fear,

others from superstition, and the more powerful part shares with the king the

plunder of the rest.

This is supposing the present race of kings in the world to have had an

honorable origin; whereas it is more than probable, that could we take off the dark

covering of antiquity, and trace them to their first rise, that we should find the first

of them nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose

savage manners of preeminence in subtlety obtained him the title of chief among

plunderers; and who by increasing in power, and extending his depredations,

overawed the quiet and defenseless to purchase their safety by frequent

contributions. Yet his electors could have no idea of giving hereditary right to his

descendants, because such a perpetual exclusion of themselves was incompatible

with the free and unrestrained principles they professed to live by. Wherefore,

hereditary succession in the early ages of monarchy could not take place as a matter

of claim, but as something casual or complemental; but as few or no records were

extant in those days, and traditionary history stuffed with fables, it was very easy,

after the lapse of a few generations, to trump up some superstitious tale,

conveniently timed, Mahomet like, to cram hereditary right down the throats of the

vulgar. Perhaps the disorders which threatened, or seemed to threaten on the

decease of a leader and the choice of a new one (for elections among ruffians could

not be very orderly) induced many at first to favor hereditary pretensions; by which

means it happened, as it hath happened since, that what at first was submitted to as

a convenience, was afterwards claimed as a right.

England, since the conquest, hath known some few good monarchs, but

groaned beneath a much larger number of bad ones, yet no man in his senses can

say that their claim under William the Conqueror is a very honorable one. A French

bastard landing with an armed banditti, and establishing himself king of England

against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original. It

certainly hath no divinity in it. However, it is needless to spend much time in

exposing the folly of hereditary right, if there are any so weak as to believe it, let

them promiscuously worship the ass and lion, and welcome. I shall neither copy

their humility, nor disturb their devotion.

Yet I should be glad to ask how they suppose kings came at first? The

question admits but of three answers, viz., either by lot, by election, or by

usurpation. If the first king was taken by lot, it establishes a precedent for the next,

which excludes hereditary succession. Saul was by lot, yet the succession was not

hereditary, neither does it appear from that transaction there was any intention it

ever should. If the first king of any country was by election, that likewise

establishes a precedent for the next; for to say, that the right of all future

generations is taken away, by the act of the first electors, in their choice not only of

a king, but of a family of kings for ever, hath no parallel in or out of scripture but

the doctrine of original sin, which supposes the free will of all men lost in Adam;

and from such comparison, and it will admit of no other, hereditary succession can

derive no glory. For as in Adam all sinned, and as in the first electors all men

obeyed; as in the one all mankind were subjected to Satan, and in the other to

Sovereignty; as our innocence was lost in the first, and our authority in the last; and

as both disable us from reassuming some former state and privilege, it

unanswerably follows that original sin and hereditary succession are parallels.

Dishonorable rank! Inglorious connection! Yet the most subtle sophist cannot

produce a juster simile.

As to usurpation, no man will be so hardy as to defend it; and that William the

Conqueror was an usurper is a fact not to be contradicted. The plain truth is, that

the antiquity of English monarchy will not bear looking into.

But it is not so much the absurdity as the evil of hereditary succession which

concerns mankind. Did it ensure a race of good and wise men it would have the

seal of divine authority, but as it opens a door to the foolish, the wicked; and the

improper, it hath in it the nature of oppression. Men who look upon themselves

born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of

mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in

differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of

knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently

the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.

A